Please explain for us how Lieberman could champion the domestic side of the GOP party platform, when he STRONGLY disagrees with just about the entirety thereof?

Please explain for us how Lieberman would manage, in the debates, to argue for positions, which he is PRESENTLY against?

The notion of selecting EITHER Lieberman or Ridge is patently brain dead.

Not to mention PETER, that just days ago you were pleading for some exciting VP candidate. Ridge and Lieberman are about as unexciting, unappealing as you can get.

Dan. I agree completely. Ridge is more of a stiff than Lieberman though.

Dan: Peter is not endorsing either choice. Notice he says "if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with Joe." the bad news here, assuming this report is accurate, is that these guys would be McCain's choices were he not constrained by an election.

Paulin (sp?) for VP!

Its kind of a mystery to me what kind of political benefit McCain thinks he will get out of Lieberman or Ridge. Does he think the choice of either man will increase his lead on national security over Obama? His campaign has all the national security advantage its gonna get, it needs help on the domestic (especially economic side).

But his need for help on the economic side should not lead him to Romney. McCain's weakness is not that he is not closely enough tied to Big Business. McCain needs to show how his reforms can make the economy work for working class and lower middle class people. Romney lacks the common touch. He comes across like the smooth consultant who gets hired by your company and then suggests laying off half the staff. His "turn around specialist" persona will not resonate with persuadable but economically insecure voters. Socially conservative voters have more reason to distrust Romney than McCain.

Even though I think Huck would be an inferior President than Romney, as an ELECTORAL matter I think Huck would be a better choice. There are probably better choices than Huck. Its just that Huck is better than Romney.

Of course McCain prefers Lieberman and Ridge because he trusts them most to prosecute our wars if something should happen to President McCain. You can hardly blame McCain for that, but it shows just how secondary McCain considers domestic issues (not just abortion either. Taxes. Energy. Judges, Healthcare reform). That does worry me.

McCain will pick Pawlenty. This talk of floating J. Lieb and moderates, is just so the conservative base is even more ecstatic when he picks a true conservative. Lieberman will give an awesome Zell Miller-like speech at the Convention-even bigger. This is a CT Democrat-not a southern one-who was his party's VP in 2000, and he will endorse and speak on McCain's behalf!

The RNC is generally the master of conventions. If they whip the Democratic convention in style (production), substance (McCain and Lieberman vs. Clintons and Obama), and the intangables(??), McCain will leave the Republican Convention the CLEAR FAVORITE--a prediction that I am quite willing to make.

Clint, I hope you're right. And I have to admit the float of Lieberman and Ridge has made more accepting of Pawlenty, who is really nothing to write home about. Peter, You're right that McCain needs to take an interest in domestic issues--he needs to hammer home (by first really understanding) the advantages he really does have on judicial activism and health care.

Bryon York is saying it's down to Lieberman and Pawlenty.

The idea of Lieberman is about as problematic as the proposed ticket of Reagan/Ford in 1980. Saner advice was then heeded, and the idea of Ford on the ticket was dropped. Let's hope this go 'round saner advice again prevails.

What about Michael Steele?

Or Ken Blackwell?

Why are we locked into present office-holders? There's no need to narrow the pool of candidates to those currently in office.

TIME sez probably Romney, possibly Petraeus. Biden likely on the Demo side. Pawlenty or Romney? Tough choice for a variety of reasons. Romney would both lose and gain votes, Pawlenty neutral.

This is a huge test for John McCain. Has McCain learnt his lesson from the amnesty fiasco? If he does not LISTEN to the base, then he deserves to lose this election. How can he even consider Ridge or Lieberman? Crazy. I'd like to think those two names were just a headfake, but I doubt it.

If McCain cannot be trusted to pick a VP, then conservatives are right not to trust him on the other issues. It is clear teh base wants Romney or Palin. There are a number of other choices that would satisfy them. The wise choice is someone to the RIGHT of McCain - not another moderate or more to the left. A woman to the right of McCain would be perfect.

I think this election is McCain's to lose. All he needs to do is not piss off the base (now that many of them have come around - given how leftward Obama is) and hope Obama is stupid enough not to choose Hillary for VP.

I think you guys are floating in the same sort of crazy that the Daily Kos is drinking. According to them Obama will get upwards of 350 EV! Earth to partisans, you guys are smoking the good shit, we regular folk like a good story and if we lean in one direction or the other I suppose we like to hear good news, but give me a break. Reflecting on the press reminds me of what Bernard Lewis says about the role of the press in Islamic countries. It seems the rulers made good use of the press to report on stories that cast them in a good light. In Islamic countries then the saying is: No news is bad news! I suppose in america freedom of the press resulted in largely the opposite slogan. And yet in the age of the internet the surest sign that either candidate is doing poorly would be if a partisan site went silent, if you can't find a good way to "spin" reality you are in deep caca. In this competition the more insanely partisan your message the more your view represents reality, and dammit reality is what I am paying you to tell me it is. If you can't come up with a way to tell me that I can have my cake and eat it too then keep your views to yourself spoil sport.

I will tell you what, you guys can fashion/package and sell the McCain you want to believe in, but you are living in lala land if you think folks are going to buy it. With enough money lala land is quite a hospitable place, and I am not saying I don't have a small shack in that zipcode, it just seems to me thinking about politics as if such a place was reality amounts to damn near political malpractice. I will be damned if from time to time I don't want to wake up and file a class action suit.

McCain/Leiberman works because it is a portrait that doesn't strain credulity.

The McCain equals Bush attack that will and is fabricated by Daily Kos is in the majority of its strains hogwash. But in the attempt to fabricate or makeover a McCain Republicans will defacto give truth to the accusations. Some conservatives hate Bush because they don't think he was as conservative as he was sold to be. Liberals hate Bush because they think he lied. Bush was Bush. A Bush presidency failed expectations at least in part because those who framed the expectations never took time to disabuse folks of what he really stood for. The attempt to standardize McCain to the Republican platform is in the end exactly the mechanism that will make clear that McCain equals Bush. If you want a McCain that believes what you believe, you will be sold a McCain that believes what you believe.

I fully accept that both Patrick Deenen and Steven Hayward are conservative, if they were Republican office seekers odds are good that pundits would seek to ballance them just right like. The speeches might invariably sound the same themes, and perceptions of where the candidates stood would be molded so as to conceal disagreements. Your vote would be Republican and would largely be indifferent to the all important question of who the man behind the curtain was.

McCain is McCain, folks know about as much as they can stand to know about him, and might get pretty cross should some fabricated curtain be raised in front of him. Obama is the man behind the curtain, folks want McCain straight up.

Palin's out. This part--my part- of the "base" sure as H*ll doesn't want Romney. Pawlenty is a solid choice, suburban, blue collar roots, conservative where it matters most, likable.

The only inspiring choices were Jindal or Palin. Both out. Lieberman, I agree w John Lewis, would be in a way an authetnic choice, just not a Republican choice. Pawlenty by default?

I will tell you what, you guys can fashion/package and sell the McCain you want to believe in, but you are living in lala land if you think folks are going to buy it.

Amen. The "conservatives for Obama" movement here in New Mexico is going strong. We are not buying this liberal GOP garbage anymore :)

McCain/Leiberman works because it is a portrait that doesn't strain credulity.

Well said. It IS the real picture is it not.

If you want a McCain that believes what you believe, you will be sold a McCain that believes what you believe.

Right on. The wishful thinking from all sorts of quarters (on McCain) is almost deafening